The bomb at the Manchester Arena killed 22 people and injured more than 100. As the city defiantly returns to normal here are lessons from the Public Sector communicators.

by Dan Slee

There’s a school of thought that public sector comms people are a bunch of non-jobs who are a waste of money.

Their budget would be better spent on replacing windows or filling potholes, the argument goes.

Those who make that argument? They know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. Empty tins sound the loudest. Where were they when a terror attack struck Manchester? They were nowhere. Wheras the Public Sector in Manchester just as the people did responded.

As Google Trends shows, the spike of searches for Manchester and Ariana Grande whose concert was attacked is marked.

Where were the Public Sector communications people?

Late at night and for days after they were communicating with the stunned Greater Manchester public of 2.8 million, 65 million UK citizens and billions around the globe.

Thoughts should absolutely be with those who were killed and affected by the explosion. Thoughts too with the police, ambulance, fire and local government people who responded first.

But as a communicator who has worked eight years in local government I’m absolutely sparing a thought to the comms people too. There are some people in the industry who would have folded faced with this challenge. That’s understandable. A terror attack is a massive event. The response from Greater Manchester Police, Greater Manchester Fire & Rescue, Transport for Manchester, the Combined Authority, both Mayor’s teams, all parts of the NHS, Manchester City Council and others was sterling. No channel seemed to go AWOL. No-one seemed to have left a scheduled tweet in place.

Professional. Informative and well judged. Not just in the aftermath but in the coming together and moments of reflection.

When people talk about ‘non-jobs’ ask them how they’d communicate a terror attack and its aftermath. You’ll get a non-answer.

Mental resilience

I was reminded by Stephen Waddington’s post about mental resilience in communications. It’s a timely post that asks people to look after their mental health. In the aftermath of huge stress, I’d hope that the organisations and individuals involved bear this in mind. They’re bright people. I’m sure they will.

Here are some standout lessons

Co-operation

The Public Sector is not a single thing but a number of organisations that serve a community. In the aftermath of the attack, organisations shared vital updates. Fire shared police updates, for example. The Mayor’s office shared a newspaper’s frontpage, for example. The strength of the Public Sector is the long reach and broad digital footprint. In an emergency share it.

There’s no question that the public far wider than Manchester identified with the content and amplified it.

Communications to say ‘you can get updates over here.’

One lessons of communicating in an emergency is for the Public Sector to signpost people to where the up-to-date information is. This happened effectively in the Westminster attack and did so again in Manchester. Here, Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue acknowledged the incident and pointed people to Greater Manchester Police.

Communications to say ‘we’re on it’ part I

The Ambulance Trust dealing with the attack communicated via Twitter to say they were aware and ask people not to call on other matters unless it was an emergency.

Due to the incident in Manchester, please only call us for life threatening emergencies at this time. Thank you.

Police acknowledged the incident as it was breaking. This is text book stuff. By doing this they flag-up they are aware and where to follow for updates. The days of waiting to sign-off a press release at a time of emergency is long over.

Police responded to reports of an incident at Manchester Arena. Please stay away from the area. More details to follow....

If more than 20,000 people were at the Manchester Arena many more would have faced an anxious wait to see if their children, family or friends were okay. Updates to say ‘it’s not okay’ were widely shared.

If it’s okay to be not okay, it’s also okay to show your staff as being human. A Facebook timeline image shows the Greater Manchester Chief Constable embracing a member of the public. It’s genuine, warm and isn’t staged.

Communications as a captured Instagram street picture

An image on the street spotted and photographed by Greater Manchester Police and shared to their Instagram feed.

comms2point0.co.uk is a shared learning space, created by – and written for – creative communications professionals. Home to fresh comment, informed opinion, in depth analysis and expert feature articles, comms2point.co.uk inspires and supports communications professionals in the UK, Europe and beyond.